


Hotshot Blues

by kojimabrained



Category: Lancer (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: karaoke date before and after you leave to get shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 12:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30021837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kojimabrained/pseuds/kojimabrained
Summary: Drawdown and deployment are tied for the most terrifying times in a pilot's life. Coping with both is a necessity.
Kudos: 2





	1. Deployment

There is no shaking the anxiety that comes prior to a deployment. All of the pageantry, all of the chest thumping that the commissioned officers have their troops do, they’re nothing but fruitless attempts to conceal that lingering fear. Captain Lam Baoyi saw no point in it, it was time wasted doing nothing important. Probably didn’t even make the poor bastards headed into the fight tomorrow feel any better. That said, Baoyi was hardly the type to reject a night of dalliance before a major op. Really, if the PSF wanted better morale going into offensives, they ought to just let soldiers drink themselves half to death first. Hard to worry about impending battle when you’re sloshed, and you’re guaranteed to get sleep to boot. Baoyi would have been happier with poisoning herself with risqlit and shaarmi if she didn’t have someone accompanying her tonight. Fatima Razak, that hotshot pilot from the civilian fighting leagues. As if she jumped straight from a holodisk and into reality. Even some of Lam’s coworkers call her Rajah Razak instead, like they were groupies instead of commissioned officers. The blissfully cool desert night is all that keeps Baoyi from getting too upset at the prospect of drinking with the kid. Until she makes her appearance, slapping her captain on the back. Fatima Razak is clad in a varsity jacket, splattered with at least three dozen corporate and gladiator organization logos. Wouldn’t be an issue if she didn’t wear the rag into combat too. 

“Hey there. You actually thinking of getting a drink or are you just gonna pace all night.” Razak’s grin is worth a million rials, her time in the military has scarcely dimmed it. Even the act of just standing here is attracting the curious gaze of more than a few passersby. Baoyi can only rub the bridge of her nose. 

“If I see you in that getup at the briefing tomorrow, I’m throwing you in the brig myself. You better not complain.” 

“Aww, c’mon. You say that as if Rajah Razak fighting shoulder to shoulder with the boys ain’t gonna send morale through the roo-” 

“Stop now.” 

Razak makes an overacted show of sighing. Baoyi wonders if she’d get court martialed for punching Fatima. 

“Aaaanyways, I’ve found this karaoke bar that just opened. Half off for off-duty troopers. Get going, time’s rials and rial’s wastin’.” 

“Wait, karaoke? I didn’t say shit about that.”

Fatima practically pushes her superior officer on their way, who can’t, or won’t muster up the energy to resist. 

The bar’s dinghy, and filled with off duty troopers, likely attracted by the prospect of cheap booze. Fatima’s quick to chat them up, basking in her latent fame as they whoop and holler her name.  
“Emmies don’t stand a chance!!” A particularly drunk trooper shouts over the din of his comrades. 

Baoyi’s decidedly horrid at karaoke, the fact made even worse when she has almost four shots of risqlit in her. Razak’s not much better, the barrage of slow paced sappy love songs that she’s picked most definitely don’t suit her voice. 

The pair fall asleep in the room, Razak on the couch and Baoyi on the floor beneath her.

In the morning, a Loyalist convoy is ambushed in the Sri Aman Basin.


	2. Drawdown

For a soldier, there was only one thing worse than getting into the fight. It’s the drawdown after it. Once the adrenaline subsides, the combat stimmies and the medical micromachines are flushed from your system, there’s nothing left for the footman or the pilot but the debrief and the body count. To see if the butcher’s bill fit the price for whatever you were fighting over. Nothing left but the frantic searching through dogtags and ident chips to find your friends, praying and cursing that they were on the transports back. 

At least you weren’t dead. Drawdown is many things for many people, but pleasant is not one of them. Today’s bill was steep. Steep enough that there’s already arguments on whether or not it was worth it. 

Fatima Razak’s still not used to the drawdown. Normally, in the gladiator ring or the chassis track, the fights or the races end with cheers and applause and you’re happy that you’ve played the game even if you’ve lost. There’s nothing of the sort as Rajah Razak lays in her cockpit, the neural sync in her Kallarani at a low simmer. Too many things are running through her head, even with the Freeze running through her veins. She’d never see anything that intense before, even for Fatima, survival was a struggle. They went in there with a plan, cut the Loyalists off from retreating, they took a dune and started firing down onto them. But it wasn’t long before the Emmies got smart and smashed themselves into Razak’s mechs. Furball was right, it went from somewhat resembling an organized battle and quickly became a storm of violence, of metal against metal and rounds smashing into mechs and people. 

Razak remembers that she can’t remember any of the kills she scored all day. Just a lot of swearing as she fired her weapon, a vague memory of tearing a mech’s cockpit out with her Kallarani’s hands.

She figures that’s a bad sign for her mental health. Something for the medics to figure out instead of her.

A handful of the other pilots still have the energy to give her a pat on the shoulder or a raised fist as they pass by the pilot. The name Rajah Razak still gives some folks a reason to cheer. A small smile crosses her face. Not enough to erase the horrors of the day from her brain completely, but enough to keep them at bay for a little while at least. She walks through the gantries and beheaded mechs and triage tents that make up Airbase Tobruk now, a varsity jacket pulled tightly on her. Just before she can leave stands the blue/tan/grey fatigued form of Lam Baoyi, the captain’s star on her lapel replaced by the star and sword of a major. 

“You gonna fling me into jail now because I brought the jacket with?” A snort from the newly minted Major. “Nah. Just happy you’re out of that mess alive.” There’s a quiet moment between the two, a silence that should be uncomfortable. 

“Good. Then we’re going out for karaoke again. Celebrate being alive.” A shadow of that million rial smile returns to her face, and the Major throws her hands up. “If you insist.”

**Author's Note:**

> These characters are mine, Lancer belongs to Massif Press, and Suldan belongs to Kai Tave on Pilotnet.


End file.
